Although not everyone is blessed with a green thumb, it does not mean that you can’t enjoy the many benefits of gardening. Gardening is not just simply about creating an aesthetically beautiful space and growing healthy plants, it is also a way to create harmony and balance in your life. Gardening enriches your body, your diet, and your spirit. Gardening has numerous health benefits which can motivate anyone to cultivate the gardener within.


Here are some of the health benefits of gardening:

- Gardening reduces stress.

- It is an excellent way to get physical exercise without really trying. In addition, it uses all the major muscle groups.

- It increases balance, flexibility, improves coordination and agility.

- Gardening is good for spatial awareness and development.

- Gardening also promotes a nurturing approach towards nature and the environment.

- By getting outside and gardening, you are getting fresh air with the added benefit of sunshine and vitamin D.

- When you grow your own garden, you get free, fresh and pesticide-free food like tomatoes, squash, basil, coriander, peppers, carrots; the list is endless.

- Gardening is an excellent way to encourage bone-building, much like how weight training can help build bones. Gardening involves numerous tasks where the body is required to shift and move from position to position. This engages many muscle groups and challenges joint flexibility and strength. In a regular gardening session, the average gardener would alternate between lifting, stretching, walking, kneeling, climbing, raking, weeding and digging.

- General gardening tasks like turning the soil, planting and hoeing, burns 250 calories an hour on average. However, if you are gardening more aggressively and are dredging, digging, and weeding, you are likely to burn 350 calories an hour on average.

- By eating fruits and vegetables from your own garden, your diet is likely to become more nutritious. Research shows that people you are involved in the growth process of their food tend to eat more vegetables, fruits and fresh herbs.

- Gardening helps to create a happier, calmer state of mind, and can be meditative. Gardening gets you away from all the things that can over stimulate you, like cell phones, computers, TV, etc. Interestingly, there is an actual clinical profession and therapy called horticultural therapy. In this therapy, people in places like rehabilitation programs, nursing homes, and hospitals engage in gardening tasks as part of their treatment plan.

- Gardening encourages your creativity and imagination. Planning which seeds you will use, where to plant them, and how you want your garden to look requires imagination and creativity. By exercising these skills, your mind develops new neuroconnections and learns how to be more creative. This new skill of creativity can then be applied to other parts of your life.

- Growing a garden takes patience, planning, follow-through and problem-solving skills; it is a great activity for the entire family to enjoy together.

- Working in the garden improves blood flow and releases endorphins, which increase happiness and are natural painkillers.

- Research has shown that people who interact with plants recover more quickly from stress and fatigue.


USEFUL INFO:

- Test your soil to find out the pH and how much nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium it contains, and then use a fertilizer that contains the right nutrients for your soil type. Always be sure to sweep any loose fertilizer off sidewalks or driveways to prevent runoff.

- Keep an eye on your plants and pay attention to the bugs that you find. Not all bugs are pests. Some, like lady-bugs, are actually beneficial and eat the insects that would otherwise harm your garden.

- An excellent website to go to for gardening tips and advice is the National Garden Association website: www.garden.org

- Plant tomatoes about one foot apart so you can use a string of 7-watt outdoor Christmas tree lights to keep them warm at night.

- For people with limited space and too much shade, make raised garden boxes, two feet high, four feet long, and two feet wide. Plant corn and beans around the outer edge of the planter. In the box, plant tomatoes. The corn shades the tomatoes and the beans grow up the corn plants but do not affect the corn's growth.

- After cooking vegetables in water, especially beets, let the water cool and add it to your lawn and garden. The nutrients in the water make a great fertilizer.


Resources:

http://www.bluezones.com/eat
http://www.safegardening.co.uk/health-benefits-gardening.html
http://chealth.canoe.ca/channel_health_features_details.asp?channel_id=10&article_id=1093&health_feature_id=341&relation_id=1449
http://www.getliving.ca/assets/downloads/Benefits_of_Gardening_for_Wellness.pdf
http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1537630
http://www.garden.org/home
http://www.househunting.ca/outdoorliving/story.html?id=5f45cf86-5c15-4be1-98bd-a7fa3bac2082
http://protestanism.suite101.com/article.cfm/blessings_benefits_of_gardening
http://www.marthastewart.com/article/reap-the-benefits-of-gardening